Text Fw: Some Reports on the Rally for Okinawa On April 25, 2010

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* Image source: same as the below link

Ten Thousand Things

SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010

'90,000 Okinawans attend massive April 25 rally demanding the closure of the Futenma U.S. Marine Base & opposing a "replacement" base in Henoko,
From Martin Frid at Kurashi, two shots of the massive rally in Okinawa on April 25. 90,000 people attended. Many more intended to join the rally, but were stuck in traffic en route.' ___________________________________________________________________

* Image source: same as the below link

Peace Philosophy Center
SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2010

International Solidarity Messages for Okinawa 沖縄へ　世界各地からの声
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* From Makiko Sato on April 25, 2010

'There have been 37 or 38 messages sent to Okinawa for the prefectural rally.
So the chief of the secretariat said he could not read any of them, and, instead, he
mentioned the names of the organizations and the individuals who sent a message
and the last name was the Gangjeong mayor.

Though in Japanese, please recognize it.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6429358
(00:09:25~09:32 )

Aside from the mayor, you may recognize the group of Guam's indeginous people, and Denis Kuchinich.

The participants at the venue were more than 93,700,( I've just recieved an email and got to know this number) but there were more coming on the road. The municipalities ran shuttle buses from their villagers, but the road leading to the venue was so congested, 2-km long lines of cars as well as shuttle buses.

( We, in Oita, learned this from Mr.Chibana, the famous Okinawan activist who burned a Japan's national flag in '70s.
He telephoned to the organaizer of 'The 25th Oita activizm for Okinawa' today in the middle of our demonstration, saying that the organization of fishers of the City of Uruma, the seemingly eternal base planned by Hatoyama on and around White beaceh, has just made a organizational resolution of not accepting any US base.)

The cheif-of-the secreatriat spoke of the activism from tomorrow on:

・Tommorow, a special team is to be set up and it will go and meet with the central government,
incluging the Ministerof Defense, then Diet members. The next day, they will go to
the US embassy.... In the end, they will stage sit-ins before the buigling for the official accommodation of Diet members.

・The secretariat will deliver tomorrow morning's newspapers of two Okinawa newspaper companies to all the Diet members .

・the endorsing organizations from around Japan for this prefectural rally were 281 as of yesterday.

・ Money worth￥ 5,005,005 was donated at this venue individually by the participants .


'Let's confirm together that today's event has been a big success. Let's ask our governer,
and the Diet members elected from Okinawa to urge Hatoyama to settle this problem
by relocating Futenma base outside Okinawa.

People of Okinawa have been in pain for 65 years after the WW2. We wonder how
Prime Minister is going to dissolve our pain and sufferings. By any means, we cannot
accept further pain. Let's appeal to all the people in this country, for all the problems of
Japan-US Security Treaty, the relating problems of the US bases, and the fact that theUS forces is not deterrent...

Japanese people seem to have stopped thinking about all these.
So, let's appeal to them these problems NOW, especially the problem of US bases
including Japan-US Security Treaty. Let's unite as one in order to urge both Japan and
the US government to solve this problem. Let's hang on! ( Ganbarou! )

Makiko

PS. Here in my hometown of Oita, 1,000 people belonging to the Social Democratic Party staged on-hour rally in the morning, and then from 3:00-5:00 pm, 50 non-affiliate voters including me staged a demonstration downtown and distributed more than 1,500 handbills.'